


In Pinkness and In Health

by Mangerine



Category: World Trigger
Genre: Everybody plays the Quiet Game, Have an emotional breakdown in the woods today!, M/M, Scientist!Yuma, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 12:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: A scientist arrives in Mikado City, a small orchard town, with a strange invention and no plans to stay for long. But as harvest season nears, he finds himself facing an old, familiar evil - something deadly, something silent, something pink.





	In Pinkness and In Health

  
  


It was a dark and stormy night.

Or, it was about to be.

Yuma hurried through the forest, hopping past thick pools of mud, stepping on soft mounds of fallen leaves. The next city would draw up soon. There, he’d find a nice room for the night and the next few nights. His old suitcases rattle in warning with each step he took, just loudly enough for him to slow down.

Mikado city was promising enough — small, but bubbling over with trade. Fruit sellers the next town over swore they’d never think of importing their tangerines from anywhere else. In the branches, Yuma spotted oily, pea-like buds still hanging persistently, the bratty wind shrieking through them, throttling them like rattles. Maybe he’d be here long enough to enjoy the harvest.

 _Nothing but good tidings ahead_ , he thought, phlegmatic.

 

 _Hastiness will be the death of a scientist,_ his dead father warned. Black letters jumped in and out of view from under his collar as he signed to his son quickly,  _you’ll have to stop jumping to conclusions – and jumping around my lab, you sugar-addled little-_

 

 **“It is going to rain soon,”** Replica notified,

Yuma nodded, the clearing was up ahead. From there, a left turn would bring him to an old well, and he’d arrive at Mikado City gates before the sun set.

That’s when he heard the screaming.

His first thought: a beast yowling into the wind. It rang across the coppery trunks of the forest, a long, drawn-out thing, stretching and stretching until it snuffed out. Yuma stopped where he stood, until the echoes stopped flitting among the branches.

He’d barely taken two cautious steps when it came again, the same as it was before – long and thick with emotion; a loaded paint brush, pulled across a canvas until it dragged itself dry. 

It didn’t seem to come from the clearing. It didn’t even seem to come from a human. Yuma had never heard anyone scream like that.

In fact, Yuma had never heard anyone scream at all.

Any sensible person would have doubled up and ran towards the welcome gates of the nearby city. But Yuma wasn’t a sensible person. He was a scientist’s son, and a scientist in his own right.

And a scientist was nothing if not inquisitive.

 **“The time now is: 6 Koo and 30 Dian”** Replica notified preemptively, already sure Yuma was going to investigate the strange sound. 

 

 **“The sun will be setting soon”**  Replica sighed, as Yuma stepped over a small, budding bush.

 

Yuma waved at him.  _Just five minutes_ , it meant, but Replica knew Yuma would be shaking rainwater out of his cogs and gears that night.

Behind a suitably large tree, Yuma watched. A drooping, wilted, boy hunched over a tree stump, sobbing in gasping huffs. His mottled green sweater and powdery brown jeans made for a good camouflage, if it wasn’t for his crying.

 _No one particularly rich_ , Yuma thought, noting the worn cloth of his trousers, just as Replica rammed into his back, impatient.

But when the boy looked up, his silver glasses blinked in the darkening woods.

That wasn’t a metaphor either - the way the soft metal had been bent and straightened where it shone against the boy’s temples was a giveaway. Nearly pure, or a compound of such.

A spike of envy shot through Yuma. How many times had he bargained for a small wire of silver for his inventions? He’d gone a near month on watery vegetable stock and a measly baguette to save for a shard of silver no thicker than the whites of his fingernail, and here was a crybaby with a whole spectacle frame made of it.  It wasn’t even a sensible material for an everyday object,

Huffing and grousing, Yuma bent to grab for his suitcase straps. His curiosity was sated enough. Quite frankly, he wasn’t about to listen to why the rich brat was sitting in the middle of the forest screaming by himself and crying himself hoarse. Maybe high tea and crumpets went out of style among the aristocrats, and flinging yourself in the woods and wailing was the new trend —

Who cared?

The metal fixing of his suitcase handle popped then, and his suitcase swung down like a pendulum, slamming into his foot with a loud THACK.  He immediately turned to see if the boy behind him had noticed.

 

Now,

he shouldn’t have turned. If he  _hadn’t_  this might have been a different story. Or perhaps it’d be the same one, but he wouldn’t have been the same person. That’s the way things worked, always same, same, but different. Same story, different character. Same roles, different endings. Not that you could comprehend  _how_  different, since you only got one shot at life, anyhow - No triplicating your existence. There was no telling if it’d turn out the same way if they’d changed a few variables. A few unspoken words here, a smidge undone actions there, maybe he’d have been a different Yuma — A Yuma with silver spectacles, drinking thick chowder made of heartier ingredients than vegetable peelings, with generous servings of toasted garlic bread that wasn’t stale. But he wasn’t that Yuma, and like I said before, he really

should

                       not           

                                       have,    but —

 

Yuma turned, to see a pair of green eyes staring at him from behind silver frames.

He swore – for a moment, acres of forests in eyes - a microcosm, a terrarium, a cold green dot on a microscope slide. If you’d held up a perfectly flat lens to the trees, somehow – yes, no different from that. He remembers his first time he used a microscope, winking down the eyepiece, twisting the knobs slowly, slowly, watching as a plant cell in Hypotonic solution came into focus. All chlorophyll green, turgid and bloated, but alive, aware, staring back at him. For that split moment, really, he swore-

 _Hello,_  Yuma signed, awkward.

“Hello,” The boy croaked back, out loud,

And now the boy was talking, when anyone sensible would have been signing and saving their words.

Oh misfortune, Yuma felt the reluctance to converse well up in him again. They stared at each other, unsure how quite to continue a conversation neither wanted a part of.

Annoyed at being delayed (and quite possibly drenched) for nothing, popped out from behind Yuma, and huffed.

**“Are you well?”**

Osamu stared, gaping.

“He’s my chaperone,” Yuma signed, and leveraging on that, “my father built him,”. When Replica refused to introduce himself, clearly grumpy, Yuma elbowed him discreetly.

 **“Nice to meet you,”** Replica finally replied, still pissy,  **“Are you well?”**  he asked again.

“I’m fine,” The boy says back, clearly  _not_  fine. His hands were trembling and his face a right mess of tears, snot and crumbling courage.

 

Yuma studied him now, a bookish teen with limpid, green eyes. His middle finger on his left hand was dented at its top joint – a student, perhaps, or a clerk. Either way, a writer, one that gripped his pen too hard. Clean unscuffed shoes, not otherwise muddy, not one to be found in the woods. All in all, an oddity.

And scientists were often drawn to oddities.

“That’s a lie,” Yuma sighed, settling down by the boy, “I’ve got a lie detector in my eye, you know,” he signed.

He spread his palm over his chest in proper greeting.

“Y-U-M-A” he signed, before placing his palm over his chest again, bowing.

“O-S-A-M-U” the boy replied, bowing in return.

“A lie detector?” Osamu whispered hoarsely, “is that true?”

“ **False”** Replica corrected, his _actual_ lie detector beeping in his system. (though those things were notoriously useless, and Yuma was considering taking the thing out altogether). He plopped down on Yuma’s lap, burrowing into his rough jacket. No point in both of them getting wet. The clouds were getting nearer.

“I needed a conversation opener,” Yuma admitted, shrugging as he signed, “But it was pretty obvious,” The damp grass seeped into the back of his thighs, through his thick trousers.

Osamu stared at the strange boy for a moment, Before he opened his mouth, and closed it again.

“You talk,” Yuma signed, “Why?”

 

Nobody talked. Or rather, nobody with nothing really important to say did. You only had a limited amount of words in your life, and wasting it seemed silly.

You didn’t even get a gauge for how many words  _exactly_  you had left, just an imprint on your throat, the first words your soulmate would say to you, and every time you spoke, it faded and faded until it disappeared, until you found yourself unable to speak at all.

 

Yuma had a few improved blueprints to run by Mother Nature, if he ever got the chance.

 

Osamu tugged at the ends of his scarf - one of the conservative sorts that thought it improper to go around baring your imprint, but Yuma noticed the tall peaks of alphabets peeking from behind. It seemed to be an uncommon one too, not a simple  _hello_ , like his own was.

Osamu noticed him staring, and fixed up his scarf.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, fiddling with the warm yarn round his throat, “My voice won’t last until I meet them anyhow,”

Yuma leaned forward, easily muffling Replica in his coat as the little machine grumbled.

“Jumping into conclusions never did anyone good,” Yuma signed. “How’d you figure that you’re hopeless?”

Osamu looked unwilling, even petulant, before starting,

“My mother,” Osamu starts, “She’s got the Pink”

Yuma shuddered.

 

Yikes.

 

The Pink was a silent disease – quite literally. After an individual wore out their voice and went permanently silent, the pink settled in between the atrophying muscles of the voicebox like cuckoos in a stolen nest. A well-documented enigma of a mimetic virus, it imitated the dead chromatophores1, that formed imprints.

From there, metastasis. Your faded imprints would reappear, a bright, chilly pink, before your neck, the cells of your lungs, the plains of your back, the columns of your thighs. The pink consumed in an unholy burning everywhere it touched, and all its victims died, in silence, in agony, and in the pink of unhealth.

 

“My condolences,” Yuma signed.

“Don’t worry,” Osamu replied, “I got her the Echo pill.”

 _That_  certainly got his attention. The Echo pill was harvested from the first sound of humans – the newborn’s cry.  ~~Ethical issues aside,~~  the operation was intensely risky, the child could risk losing their voice for the rest of their life,  ~~and even contract the Pink themselves, much like himse~~ (the rest of the sentence was scribbled out and could not be transcribed) ~~,~~  should they accidentally draw out too much voice from them, and leave them susceptible to the Pink themselves.

But from what they knew, the Echo pill was the  ~~one of the~~   _only_  way ~~s~~  to drive the Pink away for good. The moment the infected soul spoke, the pink would be driven away, fading away for good. But its rarity made it incredibly expensive.

 

“I got a job singing for a Duke and Dame,” Osamu said, voice stilted, “Valentines’ Day is coming up, they’re - they’d do  _anything_  to make their soulmates happy”

Osamu looked down, his glasses catching his tears as he cried and cried.

“I’ll get the money, and pay back the loans, but I’ll never meet my -”

 

Yuma needed an exit out of this conversation.

 

Like he said, nobody spoke. In some misguided hope to share their limited voices with their soulmates, they never spoke, not even to the person they were supposed to talk to. A babbling child had better hope of meeting their soulmate that every other quiet adult. It was a flawed system, but it was flawed for everyone, so what’s the big deal?

 _A crybaby romantic,_ Yuma thought unhappily,  _just my luck._ He tried to fumble for his suitcase behind him, make a half-baked excuse and run for it. And that plan would have worked, like most plans worked, if he just didn’t turn around-

 

-to look Osamu in his  _(this part of the report was scratched out repeatedly. There are water stains that have blotched the ink)_.

“I can help” he signed instead, because he was an idiot. Replica seemed to think so too, butting him hard in his belly.

Osamu stared at him.

“I’m a scientist,” Yuma declared, pausing to unlatch the buckles along his luggage. “And this, is my family’s invention.”

He gestured to his machine, an unassuming black box with red strips of light around it. It glowed and beeped lazily,

“When connected to Replica. It-“

_Plock!_

Osamu and Yuma looked at the sky, wordlessly.

In a second, Yuma lunged to shut his suitcase, and clutched it to his chest. Osamu grabbed the other’s hand, pulling him down a dry, short path, under the thick, dark leaves of the orchard. They left footprints in the mud, but the rain washed it away as they ran.

 

* * *

 

“ **Track and Record: Imprint-Organizing Node** ” read a well-worn and thoroughly soggy placard.

“ **T.R.I.O.N is a system that records the molecular makeup of your imprint-** “

Yuma flipped over to the next card, half the placard flopping over, soft from the rain.

“and creates a database that finds your corresponding imprint – your soulmate”

Osamu toweled off his hair.

“Sounds crazy.”

Yuma flipped his placard. It fell with a loud  _squish_.

“Yes, it sounds crazy, but we’ve got a success rate of-“

The rest of the card was smudged and dripping. Yuma sighed and groped behind him for Replica to continue his sales pitch. The grumpy orb only wobbled nearer to Osamu, sulking and dripping water from his hinges. Osamu patted the small machine dry, muffling Replica’s satisfied beeping under the soft towel.

 _Traitor,_  Yuma thought, looking at the dismal state of his placards. He ran a hand through his hair and found that he didn’t quite rinse all the gooey tangerine shampoo out. He debated taking another shower just as another wave of thunder rolled over the small Mikumo residence, pelting the zinc roof relentlessly.

So he was wrong about the rich part. His father had salvaged the silver from a decorative fixing on a bridge years before when his own frames broke. He passed them down to Osamu when he got short sighted.

He still maintained that it was an impractical material.

Osamu’s room was humid and warm from the shower, and smelled thickly of tangerine soap. Replica had floated over to the small electric heater in the corner, springing his outer shell open to dry out his gears.

“I’ll try to find a room tomorrow,” Yuma signed, tired. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry, we have a spare futon anyway” Osamu signed, before folding up the towel and tucking it under Replica like a nest. The little robot whirred luxuriously.

Yuma looked up from what remained of his cue cards when Osamu rapped on the wooden floors.

“Sorry you had to see me like that,” Osamu signed quickly, before reaching for the placards and lining them up near the heater to dry. He was embarrassed and cagey now, a heavy palm over the teacup tempest that was spilling over just an hour ago.

Yuma found him ridiculous still. In the hour they’d shared together he’d learnt that Osamu and himself were the same age, that the boy was a student on his harvest break (whatever that was), and no, there wasn’t a new trend of rich teens screaming in forests, and why would he ever ask that?

Furthermore, beyond a sentimental fool, he was abundantly trusting, easily pushing Yuma into his home and shower without hesitation.

Still a puzzling, generous, fool, but less an enigma.  Yuma was grateful enough to not fully regret what he said next:

“When Replica’s dry,” Yuma signed “we can help you find your soulmate,”

Osamu stared at him for a little, perplexed. Yuma had the good graces to mentally attribute the redness of his face to the light from the heater.

“Thank you,” he finally signed, smiling.

As Yuma slept on his thick futon, he dreamt of green and orange, tree branches weighed heavy with tangerines; he took a step towards the tree, and fell forward, into a bowl of thick soup, surrounded by green peas and orange carrots….

He wakes to the smell of breakfast.

X

Past the orchards that were their pride and joy, Osamu spent the next afternoon showing him the long stretches of markets in the city square. The rain was a distant memory now, and the humid town promised much for Yuma.

Everything seemed abound in curiosities — Why had they a fascination with the tangerines? Why was there a salty tang to the air? Why so traditional, with most youth having their imprints wrapped up? The heavy trading with their liberal neighbours didn’t seem to impact them at all.

“Seems like I don’t have much to do here,” Yuma signed. The market was filled with sounds of bustle, but not a single word. “Everyone seems to have their soulmate already,”

Not that he minded, Mikado had an invigoration to it, a spark of life. Whether or not T.R.I.O.N got more data, the town was doing much for his spirits. Even Replica seemed cheerful.

“It’s a small town,” Osamu signed back, a second before the boxed lunch vendor, an old lady, shoved their food pack to them, and smacked his ankle with her stick, shooing them along.

As Osamu bought them tangerine juice from a young girl, Yuma idly noted that Osamu kept his imprint wrapped up as well, despite the summer’s balmy weather. It was, plainly, none of his business, but still, one wondered.

The little girl pocketed the dull coins Osamu handed her, and ladled juice into the soft shells of tangerines, handing two to Osamu. The hollow of the tangerine was immaculately white, stripped completely of flesh.

With no sophisticated equipment by the small girl, Yuma wondered how they had extracted the juice without so much a dent in the tangerine shell.

“Don’t squeeze the cup,” Osamu signed, just as Yuma pressed at his tangerine shell, attempting to confirm if it was a well-made imitation. It was, quite wondrously, organic, and very soft indeed, spilling juice over his lap as he pressed at its sides..

“Don’t-” Osamu tried again, as Yuma placed the round cup on the bench to dry himself, the laws of physics blindsiding him. The cup tipped over, soaking his left thigh with juice.

Osamu, to his credit, doesn’t laugh at him, fretting to find his handkerchief instead. The girl ducks behind her supply of tangerine shells and snickered in the distance; Yuma doesn’t blame her.

It was a local custom, Osamu signed they settled down at last for lunch. It reduced waste and tourists found it endlessly charming, so on and so forth. Osamu had looked so terribly sorry, that Yuma couldn’t bring himself to mind so much. Replica wobbled slightly on his head, thoroughly lounging in schadenfreude.

He must have looked miserable, because Osamu pushed their lunch towards him, and quickly placed Replica beside him on the far end of the bench. Yuma took one look at the lunch and baulked.

“Lovey dovey couple’s set?” He signed. The O’s had been replaced with cartoon tangerines, and the box was patterned with heart shaped tangerine slices.

“It’s cheaper,” Osamu signed, “and the old lady selling it never checks our soulmarks-“ Osamu signed, as Yuma pulled the lid off the box.

Rice, with alarmingly orange fried chicken on it, with a side of fruit (read: orange) salad, and some sautéed vegetables, the only non-orange containing side in the dish.

Yuma hoped he didn’t stick around long enough for harvest season.

 

 

With sticky pants for the remainder of the day, Yuma turned down sampling the tangerine sorbet that Osamu offered. By a souvenir shop, a perversely orange mail van (shaped like a tangerine) skidded past Yuma at a frightful speed, jolting Replica off his head, which earned Yuma a hard butting in his side.

By the time they made it past Orchard Peak, the highest point of Mikado’s topography, watching the sun set over the horizon, Yuma was dead on his feet, and Replica had made Osamu’s head his new residence.

 

To Mother Nature: Blueprint #0765

Make the sun any other colour but blasted and twice-damned  _orange._

 

“I’m sorry about today,” Osamu signed as they took off their shoes and entered the small house.

Yuma knocked twice on the wall, so Osamu stopped fixating on smoothing down a flaking piece of paint instead of looking at him.

“Don’t be down, I had fun,”

Osamu smiled, not entirely convinced, but went to fix dinner for his mother. As Yuma walked up the stairs to their small room, Replica beeped, “Not a lie,”

 _No, it isn’t._ Yuma decided, swatting fruitflies from his pants.

 

* * *

 

The hot spring they visit the day after is empty. No wonder — Winter had called her flurries back to her side months ago. The city was warm, save for the occasional sea breeze. 

It was, yet, another mystery what business they had at the humble Amatori Inn, but Osamu was firmly opaque on what business they would have there.

“It’d be a shame if you didn’t try out the tangerine hot springs,” Osamu insisted, when Yuma signed at the blazing sun.

 **“Not a lie,”**  Replica buzzed after a moment of scanning Osamu’s gestures.

 

So they walked into the small establishment, where the middle-aged lady at the reception introduced herself as the 58th generation’s boss, and ushered them to the bath.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Osamu signed from the lockers, jamming his socks into the cubby as Yuma gaped at hundreds of tangerines bobbing in the large, steaming bath.

“I can see why you wanted us to come here,” Yuma signed back, bending to pick up a tangerine that bobbed near. The tangerine was warm, and when Yuma tried at squeezing the tough rind, it would not budge.  

“There’s another reason,” Osamu admitted, “but yes,”

Kneeling down beside him, Osamu signed, “I heard that tangerine baths were good for people trying to grow talle-“

It was most positively pure superstition, completely debased in science, but Yuma reached over and shoved Osamu into the spring anyway. When he didn’t surface, Yuma peered over in worry, before two arms shot out and pulled him in face first.

The hot springs are, indeed, hot, and Yuma yelped in shock for a moment, all while Osamu relentlessly splashed at him. Yuma surfaced laughing and coughing, ducking behind a shield of two particularly large tangerines. Osamu grinned, shaking water out his hair.

 

They settled down by the far bank of the springs, Osamu idly braiding the long grasses by the bank, and Yuma trying his damnest to peel a tangerine.

“Don’t bother, they only use overripe tangerines for baths, they’re all bitter,” Osamu signed, just as Yuma released a dented tangerine back into the water.

“Speaking from experience?” Yuma signed back, defeated.

“Maybe,” Osamu evaded cooly, grabbing a tangerine and plopping it on Yuma’s head.

Yuma grabbed a nearby tangerine, careful not to upset the one on his head, and placed it on Osamu’s head.

Ducking low and graciously accepting the fruit, Osamu pawed at the water near him, dragging a nearby tangerine with the water current. He saw that it had an acceptably flat base, and stacked it on the tangerine already on Yuma’s head.

  
  


By the time Replica beeped loudly and insistently by the lockers, Osamu had a total of three tangerines on his head and one on each shoulder. Yuma, on the other hand, had four on his head, and two on each shoulder.

“So who won?” Yuma asked as they toweled off.

Osamu shrugged.

 

At the reception, the old aunt that welcomed them in was replaced by a small girl in a stiff traditional robe. When she noticed them, she closed her book and signed excitedly.

“I didn’t know you were here!” she smiled, before noticing Yuma and bowing.

“Hello,” Osamu smiled, “Yuma, this is Chika,” Osamu introduced, signing each character of her name slowly, “Chika, this is Yuma, he’s a travelling scientist.”

“Hello,” Yuma signed, placing a palm over his heart and bowing in return.

“A scientist?” Chika started, amazed.

Yuma noticed the back of the small novel the girl was reading; its bottom border was lined with clipart of test tubes containing bubbling lime green concoctions. He doubted she was having very realistic expectations of his profession at that very moment.

“Anyway,” Osamu clapped, snapping Yuma’s attention to him. “Yuma here has an invention that can find your soulmate, it seems, and he’s looking for help.”

Osamu gestured at Replica, who had decided he wanted in on the fun, and had a small tangerine balanced on him.

“ **Greetings** ,” he said, startling Chika.

Yuma stepped up then, excited, signing on about how TRION worked. He wished he brought his placards, but they were still smudged and damp. No matter, he had his sales pitch recited anyhow.

“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt,” Osamu signed, showing her how Replica’s sensor worked. Chika stared in vacant wonder, at Replica’s soft beeping, to the long wiry sensor that extended to Osamu’s hand.

“I’ll help,” Chika signed quickly, sticking out her hand.

 

* * *

 

“I have a proposition for you,” Osamu signed at five am.

“Does it involve tangerines?” Yuma signed upwards at Osamu from his futon, fingers weak from sleep.

Osamu considered this before shaking his head.

“Ok, I’ll hear you out,” Yuma signed, struggling to sit up, before giving up and lying back down.

“- from down here”

“You don’t have to find an inn. It’s nearly harvest season anyhow and they’re all full,” Osamu signed, “You can stay here with me, if you check in on my mum every now and then while I’m at rehearsal. It’ll be cheaper for you too.”

Yuma thought of the stern-faced woman resting down the hall. He’d only heard Osamu fussing over her in the kitchen, and barely saw her out of her room.

Curling his index finger to meet his thumb, Yuma signed an ‘OK’, snuggling deeper into his futon.

Osamu smiled, standing and straightening his choir robe.

“There’s breakfast in the fridge for you and my mum; I’m counting on you!” He signed, slipping out the creaking door.

With only one foot out the doors of dreams, Yuma added “Research into Tangerine Hot Springs” to his never-ending laundry list of research ideas. He’d never needed more than five hours a sleep a night, but now he found himself sleeping soundly through the night.

Mustering his slipping consciousness, Yuma retraced the conversation with Osamu as he fell into not-sleep, staring at the black of his eyelids, not quite returning to sleep.

He saw – dreamt? –  _recalled_  the white-robed Osamu signing over him.

 

 _Take care of my mother- stay here- nearly the harvest season- stay here with me- I'm counting on you_ _—_

 

 

 

 “I’ll let you stay if you promise  _not_  to fuss over me,” Kasumi signed at the breakfast table.

Yuma ran his gaze across the kitchen counter – two fat flasks stood with tea stained rims, and a row of pill bottles. There was a hand-drawn chart, with the dosage of each pill. Multiple notes, all handwritten reminders, scattered by the counter. A damp post-it lay under the lid of her teacup.

Looking back at the lady across the table, Yuma smiled and signed an ‘ok’.

She sighed in relief, and took a long sip of her tea.

 

* * *

 

They agreed that Yuma would check on her no more than twice a day, and he set off with Replica and his rewritten placards. The town was awake now, flitting like bees in the orchard. Most seemed too busy to stop and listen to his pitch. Even the children that ran by spoke of the harvest and how their relatives were coming over to pitch in.

“ **Where shall we start?”** Replica asked.

 “I don’t know,” Yuma signed, smiling.

 This was just like another town. One obsessed with their produce, maybe, but he could make it work. Figuring out how was the best part.

 

“ **Let’s find out then,”** Replica replied, floating out into the crowd.

Yuma thought he’d never tire of hearing that.

 

 

“I suppose it’d be alright” The young heiress to Kitora Textile Manufacturers signed, a folded fan hanging on her wrist and snapping with every small movement. Her uniform is a fresh red, an equally loud but happy exception to the flood of orange in the town.

As she held out her hand to Replica, she glanced, sidelong, at a sweaty worker with two long rolls of cloth on each shoulder. His shaggy hair is tied back, and he bared his arms and strong legs. His neck - and imprint - is covered with a strip of gauze.

“You know what? It’s lunch soon, you may talk to our workers here. Good luck,” she signed, and snapped her fan open, covering her red face.

 

The office lady hesitated, before turning so the busy streets wouldn’t see her signing.

“I’ll help,” she signed quickly, “I’ll get the entire Operator department on board even, all six hundred of us,”

Yuma nearly dropped his cards.

“- if you get the General Manager on board,” she finished, sticking a hand out for Yuma to shake.

He bade goodbye to the Head Operator of the Land Development Council (One  _Sawamura Kyoko_ , per the business card), and by then the sun was high in the sky.

 

 

Women in Mikado seemed to take their tangerines and their soulmates _very_ seriously indeed.

(Not that a data point of two was enough to form a reliable conclusion, What was he, a rookie?)

 

* * *

 

He’d missed lunch, but the day’s successes more than made up for it. He had over a hundred entries from Kitora Textiles alone, and a few children even stopped and offered to help – mostly because Replica reminded them of ‘an all-black bee’ – and astoundingly, he found a match between the toddling elementary schoolers.

There were healthy jokes about cooties and light hearted teasing of marriage plans in the small playground, but as the two children bashfully guessed each other’s hidden soul marks and unwrapped their scarves, there was only loud cheering and clapping.

“ **We best leave before their parents arrive,”** Replica droned, sticky small handprints all over his chrome shell. “ **I don’t want to explain why their child’s imprint was ‘snotface’”.**

Yuma ran a finger over the thin raised skin of his surgical scars, one flanking each side of his imprint, and nodded, leaving the happy scene behind.

 

 

To Mother Nature: Blueprint #0013

Give everyone (this word was underlined multiple times by the author) enough voice to last through childhood at least.

 

 

The small patch of land outside the Mikumo residence made for a lackluster garden, and spilled long weeds across the walkway, braiding the path to the door in green and grey.

Yuma took off his shoes by the walkway, and found Kasumi bundled in many woolen blankets on the worn sofa. One thermos was in the sink, on its side, and two more checkmarks were present on the table, next to the painkillers and the antibiotics. She seemed to be in no pain, breathing slow and deep in the cool rickety shed she called a home.

By the coffee table lay a huge basket heaped with yarn and knitting needles, dusty from disuse. Yuma watched the slumbering form of Kasumi - who betrayed no discomfort save for the slight trembling in her fingertips, still pinkish.

Recovery for the Pink could take anywhere up to two decades.

Yuma himself took five years.

He left Replica to roost on the pile of blankets by Kasumi, his electric warmth ebbing away the pain and padded out the house. The shears were in a box by the storeroom, stained with old brown sap but free of rust. Without gloves, he went into the garden, grabbed the long weeds in a hand, and sliced Mother Nature short.

 

 

“My mum used to grow herbs out there,” Osamu signed, hanging his choir uniform by the door. “But the pain…you know. Either way, thank you, I’ve been meaning to trim the grass forever, but I just never found the time.”

 

The long choir robe is white, and hovers a foot over the door like a spectre.

 

“To be honest, I never had the strength to pull the weeds out anyway, I don’t know how my mum did it, she keeps saying - “

Osamu stopped short as Yuma reached over to press at his skinny biceps, hotness flushing to his ears when Yuma shook his head disapprovingly.

“Your hands are like sandpaper!” Osamu signed in retaliation, hoping to distract from his scrawny build. “Didn’t you use gloves?”

Yuma looked at his palms. They didn’t look much different from usual. But he could see why Osamu pointed them out — his own hands were bony, the skin pulled taut over his palm smoothly, no callouses or chipped nails.

“How was rehearsal?” Yuma asked, and Osamu paused, staring at his robes by the door.

“Fine,” He signed back after a while, and, not wanting to come across as curt, continued, “Two more people dropped out today, they lost their voices early. The duke freaked out and made us all drink more tangerine juice, you know, since it’s supposed to make our voices last longer and all-“

“It does?” Yuma signed quickly, The tangerines seemed more and more mysterious with each passing day.

“Most people believe in it,” Osamu shrugged, amused at Yuma's frantic scribbling in his notebook.

“Drink more of it,” Yuma signed, running down his checklist on a thorough tangerine investigation.

Osamu stared.

“We’ll find your soulmate before you lose your voice,” Yuma looked right at Osamu, “so drink more of it,”

Osamu fidgeted with the light cloth around his throat, bashful at being fussed over.

“When is the performance, anyhow?” Yuma asked, wiggling his legs under the covers of his futon.

Replica was downstairs, warming his mother’s aching joints.

“In two weeks,” Osamu signed.

The ghostly uniform hangs there, visible even in the dead of night. The air smells like cut grass.

x

A week into his stay at Mikado, he’s apprehended and taken to the city’s security council.

The guard that snagged him in the middle of a sales pitch had bangs that lay low over his brow, and his imprint is an ash black against his throat.

“Yeah, his soulmate was his sister,” the other security guard signed as they led him to the main headquarters in the center of the city.

“She was a good few years older than him, used up all her words teaching him how to talk. Got the pink, kicked the bucket. He never spoke since.”

Yuma didn’t ask, but nodded anyway. He couldn’t sign with handcuffs on anyway.

“Well, it's a pity she didn't like tangerine juice, I bet it would've helped. He’s pretty much married to his job now,” The guard signed. His nametag spelt ‘YOSUKE Y.”; his face betrayed nothing but a genial smile. The subject of their conversation did not turn back.

“Well, and to me,”

Yuma nodded and smiled as the guard proudly showed him a small ring on his left hand.

 _Guess he wouldn’t want to talk to Replica then,_  Yuma thought as he was escorted to an office.

A man with a thundercloud face and a lightning bolt scar down his face greeted him behind a chunky desk.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked, signing slowly.

Yuma shook his head.

“Our authorities reported an undocumented immigration into our city,” the man continued, with a steady, sarcastic drawl of his fingers. “Have you gotten your papers checked with our Ministry of Tourism?”

Yuma shook his head again. The man, like the security guards, never introduced himself, but the plaque on his table shines in the afternoon sun.

 

**KIDO MASAMUNE**

 

 _How familiar,_  Yuma thought, just as Kido rapped sharply on the table,

Yuma moved to sign, but his cuffed hands jingled uselessly, just as a window by the far end of the room knocked loudly.

 **“His name is Kuga Yuma,”** Replica boomed, through the window of the office. Kido made no move to let him in, only staring slowly, remembering.

His eyes moved like a calibrator, from Replica at the window, to the photo frames at the other end of the room, finally stopping at Yuma-

-and the patch of uneven skin on his neck.

 

“Do you-” He started signing, then faltered. He let his sentence drift into a dismissive wave.

“Do you have your papers?” He signed.

 **“Yes, he does,”** Replica boomed again, thumping against the window pane.

Kido stared, before standing up to let the small chaperone in, glancing through his digital documents, and authorizing them.

He is out the Border Defense Agency by mid-afternoon.

He manages to only add fifty people to his database with the rest of the day, and wondered belatedly if he should have asked Kido as well.

 

* * *

 

After half a month of intense pain, blinding like he never knew, he woke up an orphan.

How could he have known how many words he had left? No one he knew ran out of words by age seven. The pink caught him in three years, and there was no way the starving scientist could afford the Echo for his son.

Do scientists believe in superstitions? This one did. His son and he had the same imprint, so maybe, he thought,

 

Hypothesized, if you will,

 

that it was Fate.

 

His father was already cremated when he woke. Their people believed cadavers with the Pink would only infect the others.

In his will, he left the empty lab and Replica to his son.

On that son, he left his imprint.

* * *

 

 

“Yugo’s son?” Shinoda signed, tugging at his starched collar.

“Got arrested by Kido, yes,” Rindo signed, “said he was accompanied by “the Kuga’s abomination”, which I suppose was Replica,”

Rindo paused to light up a cigarette.

“Replica barely had any voice recordings back when we first met,” Rindo signed with a cigarette in one hand.

"Should you be smoking this much at your age?" Shinoda interrupted, waving away the smoke that hovered near his face.

"It's fine, it's fine," Rindo signed, "I'll just drink more tangerine juice"

"That stuff isn't a cure-all and you kno-"

“Anyway, as I was saying: Yugo’s great grandfather created the little fellow, his grandfather built him, his father gave him the first few voice lines, Yugo himself gave him most of his voice, and now, _finally,_ little Yuma’s making use of him.”

Shinoda scowled with no small measure of disdain.

“Yugo was too curious for his own good,” he signed, tie still undone about his neck. “Of all his genius, he decided to play matchmaker? It’s a shame.”

“Be nice,” Rindo signed, patting down his suit, “Yugo wanted more than anything for others to be happy, even you,” Rindo grinned, smoke filtering out from between his teeth.

“I  **am**  happy,” Shinoda signed, shoulders squared, “I’m happy making my own fate, instead of letting this-” he pinched at the skin by his imprint, “tell me who I’m supposed to fall in love with.”

“If you can’t make your own fate, store-bought is fine,” Rindo joked, a stream of smoke huffing out at his own joke.

“You and Yugo-” Shinoda signed, then sighed when Rindo simply headed for the door, nudging away a sleeping capybara.

“Come on, we’ll be late for the concert,” Rindo signed, “and after that tragedy, we’ll enjoy the harvest,”

 

 

“I’m sorry, the Chief director and Board director are out currently,” the bespectacled operator says, after she happily agreed to the test (“not for love, but for science; perhaps the love of science”).

“They’re out for the Valentines’ show in the park. You should join them, the Duke holds a concert every year, it’s a huge deal,”

“Today?” Yuma signed, “not next week?”

The operator looked bemused. “No, it'll be the official opening for harvest next week, and everyone will be busy with the harvest. That’s why they’re holding it now.”

Yuma thought of a long, drawn out scream, going through the woods.

 

 

Willowy trees shade the amphitheater, of which genus Yuma is unclear, but they are useful. The sun was rising high now and any relief from the heat was welcome.

He considered his surroundings, the thick, rough branch he settled upon, how the ancient amphitheaters were found to resemble the inner ear, making them architecturally beneficial to voice projection. He observed the deathly quiet crowd rustling in, the shake of the leaves as a child named Midorikawa plopped down by him with a quiet little girl with pigtails, each bundle of hair almost the size of Replica.

Replica himself was unnaturally quiet on his lap, and offered no distraction or comfort. Dread only rose as the conductor stalks on stage, brown slicked back hair shining in the afternoon.

“That’s Jin!’ Midorikawa signed excitedly, and Yuma nodded dumbly. The conductor bowed deeply, and as he turned, the pink curtains drew apart to reveal rows of singers, dressed in bone white robes, lined up like teeth, ready to be knocked down. The silence stretched on long enough for Yuma to spot Osamu by the corner, glasses catching the sunlight, burning.

Perhaps his soulmate would be listening.

  
  


The conductor snapped his stick against the stand of his musical score, signaling the breaking of Yuma’s promise, and the precipice of eternal silence for Osamu, but both looked straight ahead, in trepidation or calm acceptance, they didn’t know.

The wind rose as they sang. It was a love song, predictably, soft and flutey and hopelessly saturated with pathos. Some of the choir looked genuinely happy, to sing themselves dry proclaiming love. Osamu sang solemnly, bound to perfunctory pain even with his dying voice.

The pink curtains lick at his feet.

He couldn’t hear Osamu’s voice, not with the rest of the choir singing over him. Yuma wondered if Osamu’s soulmate would have his Osamu’s singing be his imprint.

 _What luck_ , he thought, then wondered why he thought that.

Osamu’s eyes stay closed as he sang, and when they opened again, they were filled with terror. He clutched the cloth around this throat, bowing deep. Lower, lower, until he disappeared behind a singer before him.

The crowd clapped and clapped and clapped, as the duke and duchess stood and kissed in front of the crowd.

Osamu ran into the pink curtains, offstage.

 

 

 

Yuma found him by the old tree stump.

He doesn’t hesitate to step over the flowering bushes, walking past the needle like branches and walking to Osamu. His scarf is finally off, and his throat is well and truly blank. The robe is splotched brown by the bottom hem, dragged through the mud. From the trees where Yuma stood, a distance away, he was rotting flower petal, white curling into dirt.

He knelt by the crying boy, and held him close.

“I’m sorry,” Osamu mouthed, hands shaking in Yuma’s.

Yuma wanted to say something, but figured it would be akin to mocking Osamu’s own voicelessness, so he stayed silent.

 

Now,

                     he shouldn’t have stayed silent.

But he did, holding Osamu close and thinking about himself. He _still_ couldn’t understand why someone would cry this hard over a lost soulmate. Yuma himself had no soulmate, and he was taking the fact rather well.

But then again,

he’d had much longer to come to terms with it, and then again, he and Osamu were different people. Same, same, but different. He thinks of blood cells; How Mother Nature engineered the O- to be universal donors. _What a coincidence_ , Yuma thought, distant. O for Osamu, giving and giving and giving, only able to receive from one other. And Yuma, for all his meddling, still unfated to give, unable, somehow, incompatible to reciprocate. Wrong antibodies, wrong imprint, wrong person, wrong soul.

Then he got angry. Where was Osamu’s soulmate? What could they be doing that was more important, more pressing than being here right now?

And what of himself? He thought, turning that scalding anger on himself. That he had given Osamu hope of finding his soulmate before he drained his voice? What good was he ever since he stepped into town? No, maybe Osamu never had hope to begin with, maybe all hope was in Yuma to begin with.

Yuma thought of Kasumi, and thought, belatedly, to help Osamu home, carry him if necessary. But the boy was still breathing staltingly like he’d forgotten how. He breathed in through his nose, then harshly through his mouth. He did this over and over in Yuma’s arms, and only then did Yuma realize he was trying to scream.

If you’d pardon the non-scientific usage of this term: Yuma’s heart broke.

He pulled Osamu to face him, and signed, over, and over: Home, Home, Home.

Let’s go home

Osamu nodded, and Yuma didn’t let go of his hand until they walked into the house.

The weeds were growing again.

 

* * *

 

For two weeks, he barely returned to the Mikumo residence. Only to shower and check on Kasumi. After a while, she told him that one person fussing over her at home was more than enough, and he returned less frequently still.

Mikado city was small, and Yuma was almost done. The general manager seemed hesitant to give him his data, but agreed as the bespectacled Branch manager egged him on. They seemed to know his father, but were quite reluctant to regale any tales of him. Yuma thanked them and went to the next house, and the next.

He was almost done.

The only person who’s imprint he didn’t have in the city was right behind the heavy door.

Kido Masamune.

 

 

“I refuse,” he signed. Slowly and surely again.

 _If I punched him in his left eye,_ Yuma thought, _it’d look like a lightning bolt scar going through a raincloud bruise._

His two guard dogs seemed to smell his aggression, and inched forward.

“Please,” Yuma signed, with the remnants of his civility “I am looking for my friend’s soulmate, and it isn’t anyone else in town. It could be you.”

“It could be anyone,” Kido replied, frustratingly calm. “You  _are_  a scientist, are you not?” he asks, “Hasn’t anyone told you about jumping to conclusions?”

Yuma jumped up then, Replica beeping loudly as Yuma slammed his palms on the table. At once, the guards are beside him, and his hands are behind his back.

Unable to sign, he screamed.

**“PLEASE!”**

It startles everyone in the room, Yuma included.

“Release him” Kido signed, fingers steady. Yuma reseated himself, and Replica hovered near, a calming presence.

“It isn’t me,” Kido signed, and unwound the cloth around his neck.

The words are gold, and very familiar, he’d heard that introduction for the first eleven years of his life.

 

“Kuga Yugo, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

 

But his father’s imprint was –

“It wasn’t me” Kido signed, “Not for your father, and not for your friend.”

 

“Now,” he signed,

 

“Leave”

 

* * *

 

“You got arrested…again?” Osamu signed.

“Won’t happen again,” Yuma smiled, bags under his eyes.

“- since I’m leaving Mikado tomorrow.”

Osamu stared as Yuma stuffed the month they spent together into his suitcase – the orange stained pants, the tiny keychains they bought together, all his research on the mysterious Mikado tangerines, a scarf his mother knitted, uneven but warm. The postcards in a folder, the glass slides in a protective case, the data of everyone in Osamu’s hometown-

He had hoped, even for a little that-

“Won’t you stay for the harvest?” Osamu signed.

“The ships will be too packed, it’s best I leave before,” Yuma replied.

“Then everyone will be here,” Osamu tried, “You can collect more data, can’t you?”

“They’ll be busy with the harvest,” Yuma replied, “I’d just be getting in the way.”

Yuma clicked the suitcases shut, and smiled tiredly.

“I’ll find your soulmate,” Yuma signed, “They’re not here, but I’ll find them, eventually,”

“You don’t have to,” Osamu signed, exasperated. “I don’t want to find them, not anymore, Yuma. You- In fact. I just want you to stay — and enjoy the harvest.”

“I’ve had enough of tangerines,” Yuma joked lamely.

“Enough of Mikado city?” Osamu signed back.

He looked pained, and Yuma pondered for a good while, lining his suitcases against the wall.

“I’ll come back,” Yuma signed again, “and I’ll have your soulmate with me,”

“You don’t have to find them,” Osamu signed again, then dropped his hands on his mattress heavily, before signing again, “You don’t, I said, don’t you _get_ it?”

Yuma sat by him on the bed and held Osamu’s clenched fist in his hand, feeling the angry hop of his pulse. He slowly uncurled it, thumbing out a rough ‘O’ in Osamu’s palm.

 

 _My O-,_ Yuma thinks,  _I’ll find you your compatible. You’ll be happy yet, I’ll make sure of it._

 

Osamu seemed dour now, more exhausted, and so was Yuma, from the week out collecting data.

“This is so sudden,” Osamu signed; his arms sagged as he did so, his fingers feebly tracing out the words.

“A merchant said he’d give me a lift in his boat, since I found his daughter’s soulmate,” Yuma signed, slipping off Osamu’s bed onto his futon. “First thing tomorrow morning,”

He slept, and dreamt almost instantly; of Osamu signing over him – 

 

_Take care of my mother-stay here-nearly the harvest season- stay here with me—--_

 

 

 

 

The boat sprung a leak, an anti-climatic end to his last day in Mikado.

“Don’t you worry, we can patch it up by early afternoon,” the burly fisherman signed, with one hand and a hook. He looked over at the pier, where his daughter was tying up her lover’s long hair. The two girls laughed as a large wave lapped onto shore.

“Look at them, makes me glad I settled down here,” The merchant signed, “Never thought my soulmate was any other lady but the sea, but now I’m a soft old land lubber,”

Yuma smiled, sleep deprived.

“You too, little man,” he signed, prodding at Replica roughly, leaving the small robot huffy, ”You got the luck to be here for harvest; nonsense that ya’d leave right before it got fun”

The sun was punishing, only promising more unrelenting heat as it crawled up the sky. Yuma debated trying the tangerine sorbet before he left, when a small hand slapped down on his shoulder.

Chika, out of breath, with tears down her cheeks.

“Osamu-“ she cries, out loud, “The pink!”           

 

* * *

 

 

On the table were his glasses, old jewelry that were unlikely to fetch much, and the deed to the house.

Yuma waited and held Kasumi’s hands in his own sweaty ones, waiting for the Duke to speak.

“I’m sorry for calling you down for nothing,” The Duke sniffed, signing at his appraiser, a man dressed too warmly for the summer weather.

The Duke sniffed again, dabbing at his runny nose with a silk handkerchief, strutting out.

Polite to the very end, the appraiser unpacked his magnifying glass, and inspected each old, scratched pearl on the necklace, reading each line on the deed. He smiled tightly at Kasumi, who’d barely looked up from her cup of cooling tea.

“It’s a start,” he signed, with the practiced calm of a man used to signing bad news, “don’t lose hope quite yet,”

He picked up the pearls again, turning it this way and that, before putting it down in well-smothered resignation.

“I can give you a quote of how much more you may need,” he signed, slipping his maginifying glass back into its pouch “and if it’s any consolation —“

Kasumi stared at the man.

“-I’m glad you’re doing better, Madam,”

Chika held her steady as she wept into her hands.

 

 

The Amatori family gave what they can, which wasn’t much, but Chika had offered to stay by Osamu as Yuma went out to the orchards.

In the orchards, Yuma picked what he could with his height, and Replica’s highly inefficient method of butting into the tangerines and dropping them to the floor. The earnings were small, but steady - until the authorities informed him that neighbours, or Non-Mikado citizens, weren’t allowed in the orchards.

Then for the next week he picked at discarded juice shells, washing them clean by the sea and helping Kasumi slice spirals out of them, making rose-like potpopurris, selling them by the market place.

Kasumi’s handiwork sells for a paltry amount, Yuma’s misshapen creations are barely touched.

 

 

The night the pink reached Osamu’s fingertips was blindingly hot, and stank of rancid tangerines that rotted in the muggy heat. Yuma wandered like a drunk into the forest, tripping past the dark bushes and scratching himself on the branches, settling by the old tree stump, sitting and catching his urge to scream.

So this is how Osamu felt, twice a full moon ago when they first met.

Someone kicked him.

“I thought we told you neighbours weren’t allowed in our orchards,”

“Why are you patrolling at night?” Yuma signed to the stern policeman with an ash black imprint. His reply was simply loosening his handcuffs from his belt.

He ambled home, still raging inside, only to snap to attention when he saw Chika pulling an old doctor into the house.

 

 

The doctor signed like his father - in short sentences, and quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he signed, like one would rip off a bandaid, “You should spend the rest of the night with him, In my experience, that always helps,”

Yuma went up, and saw the pink had gone so bright it was visible under thin cotton blanket covering Osamu.

Replica buzzed from where he sat, and Osamu looked right at Yuma, his irises completely pink. He moved to sign, but Yuma snatched Replica up and yanked his suitcases from the side of the wall, running into the night.

 

“ **Neighbour** ,” the policeman signed from behind him, as he slammed his fists into the Tamakoma branch’s main gate.

The handcuffs rattled dangerously just as a very confused Rindo steps out from the door. He purveys the scene before him : the sweaty son of his dead friend, and a very angry policeman.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” He signed.

 

 

Rindo regretted letting the boy in.

“Selling the TRION?” Rindo signed, cigarette dropping as he gaped.

Yuma doesn’t move, from across the table, green tea untouched.

“Don’t be too hasty about this,” Rindo signed, picking up his cigarette before it ignited on the table.

Yuma doesn’t move. The green tea taunts him - no more green, only pink now, pink —

“It’ll take months for the paperwork to be approved, patents aren’t sold overnight –“

 

Replica sat and observed his latest partner, the main T.R.I.O.N whirring softly in the suitcase under him.

The first two partners were strange, lonely men that only looked away from their work long enough to produce an heir. The third taught him words with his own voice. The fourth and current taught him nothing but how difficult humans were.

He thought of the years they spent together, collecting and matching imprints. He thinks of the people hesitant to trust them, of the ones that were happy they took a chance.

A chance? What did that mean? Replica only had algorithms of probability, not of preference. But all probabilities of Osamu surviving seemed slim now. It would be absurd to trade himself, an invention that took four generations to perfect, for a single digit probability.

 

“T.R.I.O.N is-, your father made Replica for _you_ , Yuma,” Rindo signed,

 

That was...not a _complete_ lie. Before Yugo, Replica existed solely as a T.R.I.O.N sensor. Only after Yuma’s birth was he engineered to perform basic duties as a guardian. The day Yuma was born, a data-entry was recorded for Yuma’s name by Yugo himself.

 **"What is the point of having me speak?"** Replica had asked, a lifetime before.

"So I don't forget how words sound," Yugo had signed, rocking his gurgling infant son to sleep. 

 

If he had wanted to hear words, Replica thought, he could have spoken to himself. But it is not the same, to hear yourself speak, and to hear another talk to you. Same, Same, but different.

 

"Yuma, Kuga Yuma" He said, slowly and clearly so Replica could record it.

In his arms, the baby reached out for him, inquisitive already.

" **Yuma"** Replica echoed, saving the voiceline to his database.

After tonight, Replica wondered, would he ever get to use that voiceline again? 

 

 

 **“Please, Mr Rindo,”**  Replica said.

Yuma stared at him, before echoing, out loud,

 

“Please,”

 

Rindo snubbed out his cigarette on the table he was so determined not to burn, and furrowed his brows.

“You’re just like your father,” Rindo said.

 

 

 

 

They clear the way for him as they see him run in with the echo pill.

He knocks his toes on the front step, the kitchen table, the stairs and the doorjamb before he finally, finally, kneels by osamu and slips the small pill down Osamu’s throat.

Yuma breathes heavily into the mattress where he knelt, before he realized, after a beat-

Nothing.

Osamu was still, even as Yuma pressed two fingers to his jugular, waiting for a pulse-

 

**_“Wake up!”_ **

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_“Wake up, please!”_ **

  
  


 

 

 

From Mother Nature: Regarding Kuga Yuma’s Blueprints

 

_I have given all you need._

x

In retrospect, it was no surprise that Osamu gave up hope that early. With an imprint like his, he was surprised he held any hope at all.

The young boy in front of him gaped, one Shinoda Something-or-other, Yuma had lost count after the third child the couple had.

He snapped his journal shut, and when he noticed the boy still staring, signed simply,

“The End”.

The boy frowned.

“What happened to Osamu then?” he signed.

“Don’t take the gauze off yet,” Yuma scolded, pressing the cotton back on the boy’s injection wound,

“What happened?” The boy insisted stubbornly, taking the gauze away to sign again.

Yuma reached for the medical tape and secured the gauze to his forearm.  _Be a doctor, they said, not that different from being a scientist, they said._

The doorbell chimed then, letting in three little hellions as Ms Sawamu- no, Ms Shinoda, walked in with her husband, who was holding a baby who wasn’t quite old enough for her Pink vaccine. Yuma could only hope the littlest one was more well behaved than his latest patient.

“Thank you for waiting,” Shinoda signed, apologetic.

“No problem,” Yuma signed, “you can pay when I drop by Tamakoma, Rindo’s been too busy to bring Yotaro to the clinic.”

“That’s a great help, the T.R.I.O.N is taking up most of his time, isn’t it? You must be proud, Kuga,”

“It’s Mikumo now,” Yuma signed, “and I’m exhausted. Replica won’t stop complaining that I’ve replaced him with the tangerine vaccine, or that the data transfer’s taking too long-”

There was a sharp tug on his trousers that bordered on de-pantsing him then, “What happened to Osamu?” The boy signed.

“Don’t take off the gauze until evening,” Yuma signed, grabbing a lolly by the receptionist’s desk and shoving it to the boy.

“What happened to Osamu?” the boy signed, as his parents waved goodbye to the bespectacled pharmacist behind the counter. His glasses shone with a bright, _practical_ , steely glint.

“Mama, do you know? Do you know—“

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ tanjerrine.tumblr.com


End file.
